[XeTeX] RTL Arabic footnotes + line numbers for critical edition

[Jonathan Kew]

On 22 Jun 2005, at 7:52 am, Bernd Carl wrote:

> Footnoted in ArabTex do definitly not work. At least that's an  
> official statement made by Prof. Lagally, the Author of ArabTex (I  
> hope he is still working on it)
> In Xetex I tried a regular footnote in Arabic text. I placed a  
> footnote inside the Arabic example the Xetex distro is bundled with.
> I certainly won't stard my edition without knowing for sure that  
> footnotes work. Something like ednotes or ledmac would be the best  
> solution but plain footnotes are okay too.
> Bernd.

Footnotes can definitely be done in Arabic text using XeTeX.

Some effort will be needed to override the default formatting of the  
footnotes (e.g., to make them right-to-left paragraphs, select an  
appropriate font, place the footnote callers properly, etc). How to  
go about this would depend on the package (plain, LaTeX, ledmac,  
etc...) you're working with; you might need to enlist the help of an  
experienced macro writer if that's not something you're confident to  
tackle yourself.

JK